One could almost hear the sigh of relief emanating from the White House – not so much over the substitution of leaders (Brazil is currently furious with the United States over the reports of NSA spying, but Pakistan’s long-prickly relations with the US are not exactly a walk in the park, either), but because of Mr. Obama’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for the time-honored state dinner.

Indeed, with cancellation of the Rousseff visit, the Obama White House will almost certainly hold no state dinner this year – prompting some in Washington to pronounce the state dinner, if not on its way to extinction, at least a candidate for the endangered species list.

Since moving into the White House in 2009, Obama has hosted six state dinners. That’s a far cry from the 35 that Ronald and Nancy Reagan put on in their eight years at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Reasons for the state dinner’s demise range from cost to presidential preference. Some even see as a factor a rise in practicality and pragmatism among the world’s growing number of democratically elected leaders, while others say America’s decline as the world’s undisputed superpower also figures in.

Ms. Rousseff’s snub of a White House state dinner may be unprecedented (Saudi Arabia’s King Saud canceled a 1957 state visit until President Eisenhower relented and moved his greeting of the monarch from the White House to the airport, as the king wished). Some of the factors dooming the state dinner are at work in the Brazilian no-show, some say.